A telephone communications environment, such as, for example, a network signalling environment or a customer premises equipment (CPE) environment, often interacts with signals in which network routing and/or origination information is signalled in-band. As is well known, such network routing and/or origination information is used in certain applications in call disposition, call billing, and call handling. However, there are many existing telephone communications environments which can transmit and receive signals comprised of such network routing and/or origination information but which cannot detect or utilize such network routing and/or origination information. Such telephone communications environments would benefit from an automated telephone communications apparatus which: (1) logically interfaces between (a) a telephone network, such as, for example, the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or a private network, on the one hand, and customer premises equipment (CPE), such as, for example a digital private business exchange (PBX), on the other hand, or (b) two portions of a switched telephone network, such as, for example, two tandem toll switching machines; (2) automatically accepts incoming calls; (3) extracts in-band network routing and/or origination information such as, for example, ANI information; and (4) presents such information, out-of-band, for use by other apparatus, such as, for example, a workstation, to aid the other apparatus in carrying out transactions with a calling party.
One particular instance of a telephone communications environment which would benefit from the detection and use of such network routing and/or origination information is a high volume telephone communications environment such as a reservations business for a travel agency or an airline where a large number of calls are incoming to the business from the public. A typical such high volume, telephone communications environment is comprised of over 100 in-coming lines and often operates inefficiently because people, such as reservations agents, need to obtain certain information from customers. This interaction with a customer can take time and can create errors. Further, a typical such high volume, telephone communications environment often operates inefficiently because certain customer premises equipment (CPE), such as, for example, a PBX (Private Business Exchange) or an ACD (Automated Call Distributor), does not efficiently distribute incoming telephone calls to particular stations or agent positions.